Method and system for distributing objects over a network

• US 7,072,938 B2
• Filed: 03/21/2003
• Issued: 07/04/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Siebel Systems Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Siebel Systems Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Diec, Thanh
• Primary Examiner(s): Jean, Frantz B.
• Application Number:
  US10/394,992
• Publication Number:
  US 20030187921A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,201 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/227, 715/513, 719/332
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms

Abstract

A method and system for passing information between a client, as a browser, and a server, as an application server, where the information is passed through a web server for processing between the application server and the browser. The webserver loads one or more template files. These template files contain standard markup language plus special tags. These tags are parsed, translated into commands for the application server, and sent to the application server. The application server returns the objects called to the web server, which passes the called objects to the client. The session is persistent.

Claims

1. A method in a computing system for processing a received web server request, comprising, in a single web server program:

retrieving a template file identified by the received web server request, the retrieved template file containing an embedded tag;

transforming the tag embedded in the retrieved template file into one or more commands for an application server program;

transmitting the commands into which the tag has been transformed to the application server program;

receiving from the application server program one or more objects provided by the application server program in response to the transmitted commands; and

satisfying the received web server request with the received objects.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the web server request is received from a web client program, and wherein satisfying the web server request includes transmitting the received objects to the web client program.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising, before satisfying the received web server request with the received objects, converting the received objects into a markup language.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the command into which the tag is transformed is an object call command identifying an object to be called by the application server program.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the transformed tag has the format

<

TagCall TagNameCall=“

TagName”

/>

where TagCall identifies a type of object to be called, and TagName identifies a specific object to be called.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the received objects is of a type selected from a group consisting of views, applets, fields, data, and links.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the web server request is received from a web client program, and wherein contents of the tag embedded in the retrieved template is based upon information received from the web client program.

8. A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computing system to process a received web server request by, in a single web server program:

loading a template file containing an embedded tag;

transforming the tag embedded in the retrieved template file into one or more commands for an application server;

forwarding the commands into which the tag has been transformed to the application server;

receiving from the application server an object provided by the application server program in response to the transmitted commands; and

satisfying the received web server request with the received object.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein the web server request is received from a web client, and wherein satisfying the web server request includes transmitting the received objects to the web client.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein the contents of the computer-readable medium further cause the computing system to, before satisfying the received web server request with the received objects, convert the received objects into a markup language.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein the command into which the tag is transformed is an object call command identifying an object to be called by the application server program.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the transformed tag has the format

<

A TagNameCall=“

B”

/>

where A identifies a type of object to be called, and B identifies a specific object to be called.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein each of the received objects is of a type selected from the group consisting of views, applets, fields, data, and links.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein the web server request is received from a web client program, and wherein contents of the tag embedded in the retrieved template is based upon information received from the web client program.

15. A system for processing a web server request, comprising:

a web server comprising;

a request receiver that receives the web server request referencing a template file,

a template file memory that contains the referenced template file, a tag being embedded in the contained referenced template file that identifies an application object, and

an object requesting subsystem that requests from an application server the application object identified in the embedded tag; and

an application server comprising;

an object provision subsystem that returns the application object requested by the web server,

the web server further comprising a request satisfaction subsystem that satisfies the received web server request with the application object returned by the application server.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the receiving subsystem receives the web request from an originator, and wherein the web server'"'"'s request satisfaction subsystem comprises:

a transformation subsystem for transforming the returned application object into a markup language representation; and

a sending subsystem that sends the markup language representation of the application object generated by the transformation subsystem to the originator.

17. The system of claim 15, further comprising a web client that originates the web server request received by the request receiver, and that receives the application object.

18. The system of claim 15 wherein the object provision subsystem returns application objects of one or more types selected from a group consisting of:

views, applets, fields, data, and links.

19. One or more computer memories collectively containing a web document template data structure, the data structure comprising:

content expressed in a markup language; and

at least one application object reference tag, the application object reference tag identifying an application object,

such that a web server may parse the data structure to select each application object reference tag, obtain the application object identified by each selected the application object reference tag from an application server, and incorporate the retrieved application object into the content.

20. The computer memories of claim 19 wherein each application object reference tag has the format

<

A TagNameCall=“

B”

/>

where A identifies a type of application object to be obtained from the application server, and B identifies a specific object to be obtained from the application server.

21. One or more generated data signals collectively conveying a web document data structure, comprising content encoded in a markup language, the content including a representation of an application object obtained by a web server computer system from an application server computer system based upon the occurrence of a tag specifying the application object within a template from which the web document data structure was generated, such that the contents of the data structure may be rendered by a web document browser to display content including the representation of the application object.